Anil Akkara

What He Did: Transformed his village with organic farming and sanitation initiatives.

What He Did: Transformed his village with organic farming and sanitation initiatives.

Ever heard of panchayat-owned branded rice or oil? Adat village in Thrissur, Kerala, has both: organic Adat rice and Kerasree coconut oil, and they sell well despite the high prices. That farming is not a loss-making activity here is due to panchayat president Anil Akkara. Under Akkara's leadership for the last 10 years, Adat has become a model village showcasing various honours-Swaraj Award for best panchayat for eight years, the Central government's Nirmal Gram Puraskar for achieving full sanitation and the Central Water Resources Ministry's prize for groundwater augmentation through rainwater harvesting. "We have won awards worth Rs 1.5 crore in the last 10 years," says the 36-year-old Akkara, who was in St. Thomas College when he first headed the panchayat. Even when the Left swept the polls, Akkara has been one of the few Congressmen who did not taste electoral defeat.

"Besides it becoming self-reliant, Adat's initiative to have its own branded organic rice solves many chronic problems faced by paddy cultivators."B. Sugathakumari, Environmentalist and Poet

One of his key successes was ridding 3,000 acres of paddy fields in the Kole wetlands (waterlogged low lying lands) of intense contamination by shifting to organic farming. Until then these fields annually consumed 1.5 tonnes of Furadan, a highly toxic pesticide that poisoned the nearby water bodies. "Initially, we were worried about the fall in production. But the disappearance of various health problems faced by the farmers changed our minds," says K. Raghavan, a farmer. Adat's domestic waste mixed with cowdung is converted into organic manure. A 20-member society of women under the state-level women's empowerment project, Kudumbasree, supervises the project. These women from BPL families make about Rs 5,000 every month by selling manure. Every home in Adat has toilets. It is also the first panchayat to implement a housing scheme for all its homeless and landless. The panchayat set up an iron treatment plant with contributions from the 3,500 beneficiary families and technical support from an engineering college at a cost of Rs 2 crore.

25 tonnes of rice and 3,000 kg of oil is sold by Adat in a month

"Today, we have no drinking water shortage, even in summers," says Akkara. Puzhakkal, the river running through Adat, was for long no better than a stinking drain. The panchayat cleaned it up. The Puzhakkal River Tourism Village now attracts hundreds of tourists who come for a cruise in the reborn river. And a rebirth it is for the village, too, under Akkara's able leadership.

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